The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for managing, selecting, and adding terms from large lists of terms. More particularly for use in managing and selecting document categories from a list of category terms for use in document management.
As the amount of information stored by computer systems continues its exponential growth, companies are developing sophisticated information organization methods to aid users in both the storage and retrieval of that information. For example, the simple hierarchical file storage methods wherein files are stored within nested layers of folders makes the task of retrieving files difficult as the number and variety of stored files grows. This difficulty is compounded when files are stored and shared across groups of users, companies, organizations, and so on. Newer techniques, such as those used by document management systems, Intranet systems, Internet systems, etc., often supplement or supplant the simple, hierarchical file system with a category-based approach. Unlike the simple, hierarchical file systems, category-based systems are organized as a tree structure having many category nodes. Documents are indexed in multiple categories so that they may be found by way of multiple category nodes. As a result, different users can locate the same file while applying different logic in their respective searches for the file.
However, while such systems simplify the retrieval of documents, they may add complexity when storing and categorizing documents. For instance, in order for readers/browsers to be able to easily find a previously created document, it should be locatable in a number of different categories, e.g., a document may be categorized by document type (specification, manual, etc.), by content type, by project, and so on. It is advantageous if the creator/editor/author of the document can provide input about the proper categorization, as those most familiar with the content are most likely to accurately judge which categorization is most relevant. In order for the author to participate and for the categorization to be meaningful, the categorization process should be as easy and as comprehensive as possible. But as a particular document system grows in complexity and number of categories, the categorization task can become daunting. The present invention provides a system and methods that address the shortcomings of previous systems.
Along with these newer organizational techniques, categorization tools are necessary to ease the burden of properly indexing a document across multiple categories. To that end, the invention provides users with the tools to quickly tag a document with indexing information (metadata) to make the document easier to locate. To facilitate decentralized document management, an author of a document is encouraged to categorize the document (e.g., at the time of document creation). The present invention provides a user interface that permits the user to quickly and efficiently select all or many of the relevant categories into which the document should be indexed. The invention provides the user with tools to search and select predefined category paths from a large list of such paths.
The system and method facilitates user categorization of a document into a plurality of categories by displaying a list of vocabulary terms, each term representative of a category. A check box associated with each vocabulary term is displayed alongside each term. A user than indicates acceptance of vocabulary terms by selecting its check box. All of the selected terms are provided for association of the document with each category whose corresponding vocabulary term was selected. In this way, a user can quickly and efficiently cause a document to be associated with many relevant categories and thereby aid in later location and retrieval of the document.
According to an aspect of the invention, finding relevant entries in the list of vocabularies is aided by the use of search strings and dynamic filtering. By entering a string, e.g., xe2x80x9cwinxe2x80x9d, the user is presented with a list of all category paths matching (case-insensitive) the regular expression xe2x80x9cwinxe2x80x9d anywhere in the string. In this way, the set of all categories can be quickly filtered to a smaller subset that contains the text of interest.